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Concentrations of methane, ethane and propane were found in higher levels in drinking water for homes within a kilometer of shale gas wells in parts of the Marcellus Shale in northeast Pennsylvania, according to a study released Monday. It was the third such study by Duke University’s Robert Jackson, a professor of environmental sciences.

The North American shale revolution “is now deeply entrenched,” and is expected to keep natural gas prices at “historically low prices for some time,” creating both long-term benefits and hardships for a variety of sectors and companies, according to a report issued by Moody’s Investor Services on Monday.

Officials with the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) announced Wednesday that the agency had started a multi-year effort to study water quantity, but rebuffed calls for it to be expanded to a comprehensive environmental study that could include the impacts of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the basin.

Thirteen years after the 2000-01 energy market meltdown there are still parts of old legal and regulatory cases emerging in California that carry potentially multi-billion dollar consequences. Two cases emerged the first two weeks of April — one in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco and other at California’s state regulatory commission in the same city.

North American oil and natural gas producers are in the “middle to latter stages of the land grab” for unconventional properties, but there still will be opportunities down the road for others to pitch a claim, said Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Inc.’s (TPH) Bobby Tudor.

Hoping to head off threats of a state moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (fracking), Illinois state legislative, oil/natural gas industry and environmental leaders on Thursday announced agreement on a bipartisan bill (HB 2615) establishing rules on the use of the contested well stimulation practice.

Opponents of TransCanada Corp.’s proposed northern portion of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada running through parts of Nebraska argued last Thursday in state district court in Lancaster County that Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman lacked the authority to approve a proposed route for the project. In January, he approved a new alternative route (see Shale Daily, Jan. 23). Opponents of the project want Heineman’s decision voided by a district court judge because they allege a state pipeline siting act passed last year by Nebraska’s legislature is unconstitutional. The legislation gave the governor the ultimate decision on the route. At the end of last year Lancaster County District Judge Stephanie Stacy rejected the state’s attempt to have the lawsuit dismissed.

California’s preliminary state agency-drafted rules for hydraulic fracturing (fracking) have been targeted by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which has criticized state regulators as being in “denial” of potential harmful environmental impacts of fracking.

Support for hydraulic fracturing (fracking) among New Yorkers remained unchanged overall, as a sharp increase in backing among suburbanites canceled out flagging support from Upstate voters, according to a Siena College Research Institute poll released Wednesday.